Archive for 2019

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “The only thing more enjoyable than seeing your opponent lose an election they rigged is seeing them lose an investigation they rigged.”

FAILURE: Mueller’s Muttering Misfire For Democrats. “How big a nothingburger was Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday? Within 30 minutes of the end of his sad, near-senile performance lasting more than six hours, MSNBC’s out-for-Trump’s-blood commentators had turned to asking defeated Missouri Democrat ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill to describe to viewers how the Russians are promoting the anti-vaccine movement.”

Related: Mueller’s Report Looks Bad For Obama.

ANOTHER URBAN MYTH DEBUNKED: Gentrification for Social Justice. A new study shows that gentrification actually displaces few long-time residents, doesn’t lead to big increases in their rents, and improves their lives in various ways (like making it more likely that their children will attend college).

EARS TO THE GROUND: In key Senate races, Democrats buck leftward tilt on issues.

But the broader trend continues:

Policy differences always exist inside the major parties, but to some voters the Democratic agenda could soon seem like a hopeless argument with itself. More than in years past, progressives are insisting that winning in a polarized political environment requires ambitious ideas, not hedged compromises.

Even in moderate or conservative states, “having the candidate who is campaigning on exciting ideas is the biggest thing that will elevate them,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Washington-based Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for president.

In Texas, party leaders say they are confident in Air Force veteran Hegar taking on Republican incumbent John Cornyn , but they also are not discouraging progressives from challenging her. The field organizer for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s near-miss campaign for U.S. Senate last year is now trying to draft Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, the leader of a progressive Latino group called the Jolt Initiative.

The progressives are on a mad drunk, convinced Trump is going to lose and that this is their best bet to put people in office who make Obama’s ambitions seem moderate in comparison.

I’m not getting cocky, but it sure seems like they’re in for one helluva hangover.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Is Disability The New Normal? On some elite US campuses, as many as one in four students are classified as ‘disabled’.

In recent times, the tendency to medicalise human experience has encouraged a growing number of young people to interpret their lives through the narrative of mental health. When a student’s ups and downs are interpreted through medical language, then experiences like disappointment, pressure and stress come to be seen as pathological. Feelings and emotions that were once considered normal seem more threatening in our medicalised culture.

Young people who have been educated and socialised to understand their experiences through the prism of mental health easily develop a disposition to interpret every problem they face through a medical diagnosis. In such circumstances, they quite naturally believe that they are entitled to some form of medical support and special treatment. Moreover, once disability is depicted as the new normal, many will embrace it as an identity.

The institutionalisation of disability does no favours to young people. It diminishes their capacity for independence. It also does no favours to those who suffer from serious disabilities. The normalisation of disability trivialises these conditions and channels resources away from those who really need them.

It does allow people whose parents can afford a compliant doctor to get a leg up in the rat race.

DEVELOPING: Ricardo Rosselló, Puerto Rico’s Governor, Resigns After Protests.

Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló of Puerto Rico announced his resignation on Wednesday, conceding that he could no longer credibly remain in power after an extraordinary popular uprising and looming impeachment proceedings had derailed his administration.

In a statement posted online late Wednesday, Mr. Rosselló, 40, said he would step down on Aug. 2.

He said his successor for the moment would be the secretary of justice, Wanda Vázquez, a former district attorney who once headed the island’s office of women’s affairs. Ms. Vázquez was next in line under the territory’s Constitution after the secretary of state, who would have succeeded as governor, resigned last week when he also was caught up in a chat scandal that enveloped Mr. Rosselló’s administration.

But he appeared to leave open the possibility that a different successor could be in place by the time he steps down.

“If only Ricardo Rosselló appeared in blackface for his college yearbook, he would’ve remained in power,” Siraj Hashmi of the Washington Examiner tweets.

Earlier: Trump was right all along about Puerto Rico, with protests blowing apart Democrats’ hurricane narrative.

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OPEN THREAD: Did anything happen today?